During my trimester break back in September, I called a bunch of Upper Cervical Chiropractors out here in the Dallas/ Fort Worth area. I wanted to check out their clinics and see what they did. No one called me back… except for Dr. Mike Thompson.
He invited me out to check out his clinic, and I did. It was there that I was able to first start seeing some real Upper Cervical care, Orthospinology and Blair, as well as learn a little history as well.
Dr. Mike is practicing in what used to be Dr. Mary Ann Pruitt’s clinic. Needless to say, if someone is into chiropractic history, it’s a great place to visit. It’s always a great thing to see an original neurocalograph, along with the original lease agreement signed by B.J. Palmer himself.
Dr. Mike has been a great help to me, as well as my wife. I appreciate all that he does and I am grateful he took time out of his busy schedule to do an interview for The Atlas of Life.
Brandon: Why did you decide to become a chiropractor?
Dr. Mike: “I always wanted to be a doctor while I was growing up. I guess I just had a natural desire to help people and I guess a compassionate demeanor. I really had no thoughts about med school to any big degree in high school. My goals were geared more toward professional baseball. I moved to Atlanta from Tampa, FL after high school to play college baseball and different circumstances closed that door for me.
I began working in Marietta, GA and met so many people who were Life students and began to get excited again about being a doctor. I was a bus boy and a waiter. It was amazing how many people I worked with that were Life students. Even Dr. Patrick Gentempo worked there! He was on the tail end of his schooling as I was starting.
I learned so much about spinal anatomy before I ever began school just by asking questions. I was even ‘setting up on P-A thoracics with contact points lines of drive etc… when I was in CHEM 2 before Life College ! Chiropractic just made so much sense to me. So I knocked out pre-reqs and started at Life in the fall of 1983.
What’s really funny is that in my technique classes I made better grades than most on practical exams with set ups etc… but I never used them. I just looked good! “
Brandon: How did you get into Upper Cervical Chiropractic?
Dr. Mike: “In the Spring of 1982, a week after getting married, my wife and I were involved in a car accident. She seemed to be the one who had a very difficult time recovering.
In a ‘chiropractic town’ like Atlanta, it wasn’t hard to find a D.C. to look at her and begin care. She actually became worse over a period of 6 months.
Shortly after beginning school at Life I met a few instructors whom I looked up to and respected. I encouraged her to see another doctor as he was very well known and I had a lot of confidence in his ability. This was my first month in chiropractic college.
Again, she became worse and we both were frustrated to say the least. She couldn’t sleep well at night, was always asking for back rubs, and was basically miserable 7 days a week.
I met an upper classman at Life midway through my first quarter who preached with a very confident air that upper cervical WAS chiropractic and without being an upper cervical SPECIFIC doctor, chiropractic was nothing. He would come into our philosophy class and give talks about atlas and axis. He called himself “one of the few, the proud, the upper cervical”.
Well the light bulb went off. That was it. This is what made sense and resonated with me. He told me about a doctor in Smyrna who did a specialized procedure much different than my reality of UC (toggle) called Grostic. He said take your wife to see him. His name was Dr. J.K. Humber, Sr.
Well my wife was not very enthusiastic about going to see ANOTHER chiropractor. I convinced her that he was different. Two corrections later over 3 weeks and she was pain free ! And all he did was lightly tap her behind the ear lobe !
Then he showed us her PRE x-ray and her POST. The change was impressive. I knew right then I had to learn this procedure. I did nothing more than adjust atlas all the way through clinic.
I was one of those students that always provoked thought with my classmates. I was a radical upper cervical guy. “One of those guys”. Everyone said those of us that were upper cervical were ‘wasting’ our tuition dollars by ‘limiting’ ourselves to just one area.
I remember like it was yesterday on a Monday morning after a Homecoming weekend at Life, following many different seminars from Dr. Fred Barge, to Dr. Reggie Gold, to Erhardt X-ray, to Cox low back to Motion Palpation… a guy asked me “So what seminar did you take? I took motion palpation.”
I told him Orthospinology. He asked what that was. I replied that it was an upper cervical technique. “You know, adjusting the atlas only.”
I’ll NEVER forget his response. He said “that seems kinda silly… how can you spend an entire weekend seminar (16 hrs) on just one bone?” I had to tell him with authority and conviction that we can spend an entire lifetime on one bone and never learn it all ! He just snickered and walked off.
That was a classic mentality for 99.9 % of the students in a school that was so deeply founded on the chiropractic principle. Truth is sometimes too simple for the educated mind.”
Brandon: Who were some of your mentors early on in your career?
Dr. Mike: “Of course my main mentor was Dr. J.K. He and Dr. Ken Humber, his son, were my teachers of The Grostic Procedure. Their clinic was called The Humber Clinic of Chiropractic Orthospinology. They were both gracious enough to allow me to spend most of my extra time in their office.
I lived and breathed the work they did. I analyzed old films they had. I observed and did the leg checks. I observed and learned how to take film. I developed the film… anything I could do to be around them, hear how they talked to their patients, what they said.. ANYTHING.
I saw some of the most amazing results in their office over 4 years in school and for 8 months after I graduated as an associate doctor. I knew I was in the right office when they handed me a film to analyze and the name on it was Dr. Sid Williams ! Even the president of Life was a patient.
Dr. Sid was definitely a man I look up to and I would consider him in many ways one of my mentors. Not too many students understood where he was coming from. I looked forward to assemblies when he would get wound up talking about chiropractic and reach in his pocket and grab his keys and dangle them for a minute or so and then let them drop to the floor. His point always was that there was no question at all what would happen to the keys if he let them go. They would ALWAYS hit the floor. Everytime. Just like when innate was released. Health was the natural result. There was never any question. SO profound yet so simple.
Other mentors and teachers were the late John D. Grostic who was an instructor of mine at Life. What an amazing man. A genius no doubt. Drs. McAlpine, Crowe (Hugh), Burnett (who was an incredible hand adjustor and a brilliant man), Bobby Smith and the great Cecil Laney (another absolutely brilliant man).
Being around all of these guys on a regular basis prepared me for the difficult cases we all see in practice. I still to this day ask myself when I’m challenged with a difficult case “What would Dr. J.K do..?” or “What would Dr. Ken do?” and I have my answer. Time in their clinic and taking the Orthospinology work all the way through school was priceless!
My present mentor would have to be Dr. Tom Forest. He and Dr. Hubbard are my Blair instructors. Dr. Forest has always been there for me to bounce questions off of and look at digital film I’m not quite sure on. He is another guy I would have to say is brilliant. One day I’d like to have the expertise he has.”
Brandon: You started out using the Orthospinology work for much of your career. In recent years, you have transitioned to using more of the Blair work. Can you tell us what it is like being able to utilize both techniques?
Dr. Mike: “Well my background in the Orthospinology work has been since 83-84. That is really all I knew and had a certainty for. I truly owned the concepts of misalignment. I understood the physics of correction and table placement and force. I knew when I had made a correction. I knew when to leave it alone.
I saw miracles in my own clinic like I saw in the Humber clinic. Orthospinology was what I did. Period. And I was good at it. Look who my teachers were!
After I took my Texas state board in the late 80′s I met the Pruitts in Ft. Worth. Drs. Sterling, Sr. and Mary Ann. They were a father / daughter team.
Sterling was the kind of man that preached BJ. I mean he PREACHED BJ.
When I took the board, the members each one by one addressed the candidates. All 8 spoke for 5 minutes. I kept looking over at this much older distiguished man on the end wearing a smaller western hat and tinted pair of glasses. I had no idea who he was, but he was sure interesting to observe. He was the last one to get up and talk.
Finally after all of the political nonsense that everyone else spoke about was over, he stood up and asked “Anyone here ever heard of Dr. B.J. Palmer?” He just looked at us. Eventually, we all looked at each other and mumbled… well sure we do. He said “well I hope you have because NONE of you would be sitting here if it weren’t for him !”
I sat up and listened after that introduction. He went on about chiropracTIC and the subluxation. He talked about the green books. He was hard core chiropracTIC. I was surprised that in the state of Texas there was someone who thought the way I did.
After the board exam I walked up to him and asked if I could visit his clinic in Ft Worth and he invited me to come and take a tour.
I met Dr. Mary Ann and that was my first exposure to the Blair work. We went around and around with different disagreements regarding Orthospinology and Blair over the next few years since they have differing approaches and concepts. But we did agree on upper cervical.
She was a VERY serious lady and was very active in chiropractic politically. She was ALL ABOUT chiropractic and practicing it in it’s purest form. She still used the 1949 model of the neurocaligraph and used that exclusively. Pattern analysis. That’s it.
I never really got into the Blair work until the early 90′s when I spent alot of time in her clinic. Even then, I didn’t grasp the big picture of Blair. I was practicing Orthospinology and at the same time learning a little about Blair.
When I was at Life College, never had I heard about Blair.
So, In 2005 I was literally minutes away from signing a lease in Grapevine, TX to move my clinic from Ft. Worth when I received a call from Dr. Bill Koppari in Illinois who was a close friend of Dr. Mary Ann and her family. He asked me if I had heard that she wasn’t doing well and would I cover for her until she recovered.
I felt like it was a divine intervention in my career. I never signed the lease, I covered for her but she never came back to see patients. She passed on in June of ’05.
I knew that I was supposed to be in that clinic. It wasn’t easy to transition into that practice. It was my calling though. No question.
That’s when I chose to really take the Blair work. I went to Palmer for the Primary, Intermediate, and Advanced Blair classes with Dr. Forest and Dr. Hubbard over a 3 month period and THAT’S when I began to understand Blair.
It is a totally different conceptual approach from the orthogonal approach. I found myself having Blair patients and Grostic patients. Some got better with Blair when I couldn’t get them down with Grostic and others improved with Grostic when I couldn’t do it with Blair.
Obviously it’s me dropping the ball with one or the other and for some reason I was able to deliver the adjustment better depending on the patient’s anatomy or my ability to get the contact right or whatever, but one way or another, I had to correct their subluxation.
Knowing both procedures has actually proven to be a real asset to my clinic. Personally I think all UC docs should have an understanding of all UC techniques.
Now if I get a referral from orthogonal doc and the patient expects Grostic I am very capable and the same goes with Blair. So I feel privledged to have both discplines at my disposal to utilize. I consider myself a Blair doctor just as much as I do a Grostic guy. The Blair work for me just fits. But I’m a work in progress for sure.”
Brandon: Can you tell us about some of the most interesting experiences you have had with patients?
Dr. Mike: “Well, when you are an upper cervical doctor there are always going to be very interesting experiences. I could go on and on for hours. But one particular patient will always remain in my mind as one the most interesting.
When I was in Atlanta as an associate doctor with The Humbers, I recall a lady coming in that I thought was 9 months pregnant. She walked into the adjusting room. She was in distress and my immediate thought was why is she here and not on her way to deliver! Her leg was drawn up over an inch. After she was adjusted her leg came down to maybe a quarter inch. So we took her back and adjusted her further. Her leg came down. Within 2 minutes of that correction, she didn’t look pregnant any longer.
That blew my mind. Absolutely amazing. The next few patients that came in thought she had literally given birth. They all asked about her. Dr. Ken just replied “she needed to be adjusted, so we adjusted her”.
There are so many cases that get well with UC care. Too many to comment on.”
Brandon: You have been practicing in Fort Worth for the past few years. You also just opened up a second office in Dallas recently. How has that been going?
Dr. Mike: “The Dallas office is a very small satellite location to see patients that drive from Dallas and the surrounding cities to see us. There are alot of them. So I leased a small space in uptown Dallas and see them a few hours a week.
I am ready to start building that area for new ones too. Only thing is for now, is a new patient will have to drive to Ft Worth on Day 1 to get film and then I can see them in Dallas thereafter. It’s going slow, but it’s going.”
Brandon: Right now, the Dallas / Fort Worth area has very little to offer in the way of Upper Cervical Chiropractic except for a handful of doctors, including yourself. What are your thoughts on that?
Dr. Mike: “Well, that has to change. There are far too many suffering people who need to hear about what we do.
As you know, I was a client of Upper Cervical Health Centers of America with Drs. Drury and Vaugneaux. I had to put my involvement on hold until the Pruitt Clinic was ready to convert to a UCHCA clinic.
That is slowly resolving and my plans are to align with them and open multiple clinics. We need more UC docs! In a place as big as DFW, its sad that there are not MORE of us to serve the need.
Your efforts at Parker have been a breath of fresh air. Because it starts with the students. With UCHCA and The Upper Cervical Evolution events, we all should begin to “build” for those events and have students and doctors there. That’s how we can grow.
Greg Buchanan’s efforts and the Barettas with “The Power of Upper Cervical” has been tremendous. Incredible people. What a phenomenal tool to share the story of UC. And it’s going to get better.”
Brandon: What is your vision for the future of Upper Cervical Chiropractic?
Dr. Mike: “I believe Dr. Ray and Dr. Thad with UCHCA have begun to pave the way for all of us. Unity is the answer. Recognition by the public is key. My personal vision aligns with theirs. Upper cervical doctors all over the world. Wouldn’t that be amazing ?! I want to have a part in that. I would love to eventually empower young doctors to carry through with what they have been called to do.
Upper cervical work is a ‘calling’. The Tomasi’s have it right. All we need to do is have a CRYSTAL CLEAR vision of that and it has to happen. It’s a Universal Law, right? As we thinketh, so are we.
The future of upper cervical is ready to explode. There will be obstacles by those that oppose… but when you’re dealing with TRUTH as we are… we have already won, we just have to claim it!!
Our work is cut out for us.”
Once again, a big thank you to Dr. Mike Thompson for sharing his thoughts with us.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Awesome interview, Brandon – you’re in some great company down there in TX!
What a great interview. It was awesome reading more of where Dr. Thompson came from and what his visions are. It’s nice to know there is at least 1 other UC Doc out here that gets it and that is there for us. Dr. Thompson is giving and passionate!